{"id":395689,"date":"2026-04-13T04:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T04:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/395689\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T04:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T04:15:13","slug":"fuel-protests-a-window-to-an-ireland-without-the-benefit-of-e30bn-in-corporation-tax-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/395689\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuel protests a window to an Ireland without the benefit of \u20ac30bn in corporation tax \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Early on Sunday, despite garda\u00ed<\/a> clearing the fuel protest<\/a> blockade from the Whitegate refinery, and from Dublin city centre this morning, the fuel protests continue in many parts of Ireland for a sixth day. <\/p>\n

How the protests end remains unclear. <\/p>\n

What is clear, according to Political Editor Pat Leahy in his column this weekend, is that the last week provided a window on to a possible future for Ireland<\/a>; of \u201chow things look if you don\u2019t have the benefit of \u20ac30 billion of corporation tax from US multinationals gushing into the exchequer every year\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow things look if there is a sudden economic shock. How things might work if the Irish Government had to operate in conditions more like everyone else. How things would be if our luck runs out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leahy notes that every political problem faced by recent Irish governments has been solved \u201cby finding money to throw at it\u201d. <\/p>\n

Without huge increases in spending by recent governments, Leahy says \u201cthey would not have been re-elected\u201d.<\/p>\n

The anger \u2013 bordering on despair for some \u2013 and the populist impulses evident on the protests are a sign of what the Government will face if it becomes unable to solve problems with more spending, he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t take long for words like \u201cbetrayal\u201d to get thrown about; or for the democratic legitimacy of an elected government or the established channels for groups to air grievances to suddenly not seem to matter very much,\u201d Leahy writes. <\/p>\n

He adds that the warning signs in the global economy could hardly be more obvious and notes that anyone who remembers the financial crisis in 2008-2009 knows how quickly things can turn.<\/p>\n

While the end of the protests remains unclear, Cliff Taylor looks at the economic undercurrents<\/a> which sparked the protests: \u201canger over the cost of living<\/a> and of doing business in Ireland\u201d. <\/p>\n

He says it is remarkable that a self-appointed group can \u201ceffectively control the movement of people and goods in many areas for the country\u201d for almost a week. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou would think that the unjustifiably disruptive actions of the protesters lost any wider public support as the week went on \u2013 and if this continues, large-scale job lay-offs across the economy will not be far behind. But in the early days, reactions were more mixed. Even some of those angry about the tactics had sympathy with the case being made.\u201d <\/p>\n

Taylor notes Ministers had hinted that the initial \u20ac250 million support package, would, unless the situation improved, be followed by more, the fuel used in the agricultural sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo why did the protesters move so quickly?\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor suggests the issue may centre on green diesel. The initial package contained just a 3 cent a litre cut in green diesel, which angered farmers and agricultural contractors. \u201cThree cent wasn\u2019t much of a contribution to their troubles. Hence the many tractors on the streets\u201d.<\/p>\n

Why was the tax cut on green diesel so small, Taylor asks? <\/p>\n

\u201cBecause tax on this fuel is different in one key way from that on petrol and diesel \u2013 the excise-type element (a charge based on the volume of fuel) is largely made up of carbon tax, compared to the more traditional excise duties which are still a large part of tax on petrol and ordinary diesel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government wants to protect the carbon tax partly for environmental policy reasons, but also because the revenues from it are specifically allocated to spending in various areas such as retrofitting, welfare supports and environmental farm programmes. Cut the tax and the money has to come from somewhere else,\u201d Taylor writes.<\/p>\n

Without touching the carbon tax, the scope for green diesel cuts was limited in the initial package. <\/p>\n

Read More In other coverage of the fuel protests this weekend, Jack Horgan-Jones and Conor Gallagher recount how the protests brought Ireland<\/a> to a standstill and how the seeds of this week\u2019s disruption were sown in meetings in late March and fomented online.Ciar\u00e1n O\u2019Connor examines why social media accounts linked to Iran, Russia and China <\/a>are posting about the fuel protests in Ireland.Caroline O\u2019Doherty looks at who are the protesters<\/a> who brought Dublin\u2019s city centre traffic to a standstill. \u201cA week ago, James Geoghegan was filling his TikTok account with weekly updates on the wins and woes of life as an agricultural contractor.\u201dIrish Times readers have shared their views on the protests<\/a> with some feeling the protests were \u201cblackmailing society\u201d, while others said they support the blockades despite being caught in traffic congestion for hours. The Irish Times view: An Editorial on Friday stated there are compelling reasons not to simply accede to the demands of the protesters<\/a>. \u201cThe events of the past week have gone well beyond the boundaries of the constitutionally protected right to protest.\u201d<\/p>\n

We value your views. Please feel free to send comments, feedback or suggestions for topics you would like to see covered tofeedback@irishtimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early on Sunday, despite garda\u00ed clearing the fuel protest blockade from the Whitegate refinery, and from Dublin city…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,615,171749,1346,61,60,102680],"class_list":["post-395689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-dublin","tag-fuel-protests","tag-garda-siochana","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-it-sunday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}